louisville

“Have a healthy disregard for the impossible", is a quote attributed to Google co-founder Larry Page. It’s a philosophy that took Google from two Stanford grads in a garage to being, on some days, the biggest company on the planet. It’s an acknowledgement that people aren’t always – or even usually – correct when they say you can’t do something. And it’s acceptance that sometimes the experts will be right.

(N.B. “Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why.… More

Google Fiber is bailing of Louisville, Kentucky because it screwed up its fiber build there. In an attempt to move quickly and save money, Google forgot the iron law of engineering:

Good, fast, cheap. Pick any two.

Google went with fast and cheap, and it turned out not so good. The problem was microtrenching, and its little brother, nanotrenching. Which particular techniques were the problem isn’t clear, but the result is. According to Google’s blog post yesterday…

We’re not living up to the high standards we set for ourselves, or the standards we’ve demonstrated in other Fiber cities.